the Complexion Connexion

Back visiting New York in August, I accidentally walked past the new building on Eighth Avenue and 40th Street as the construction was winding up. The first level is striking (see Ouroussoff's video demo -- Lobby Overview) and the ceramic doweling is to me a new detail which should impact the feeling of atmosphere inside.

Apparently there are some Green aspects, automatically adjustable lighting mechanisms and such, that will save energy.

The shrinking of newspapers and the shrinking of the width of The New York Times itself -- up against competition for readers' attention from the Interwebs -- is a small irony attending the new building's unveiling.

Over the next decade, newspapers will be getting used to practicing the old Strunk & White maxim...

Omit needless words.

They will be printing fewer words since people do not read most of the paper -- which, incidentally, doesn't interfere that much with the concept of the broadsheet as ad-delivery device. [For instance, it's my view that if the broadsheets disappeared entirely, we would miss them. See Nicholas Negroponte's Wired Magazine column on "The Future of Books" (Wired 4.02, 1 Feb 1996).] The New York Times, one of the more successful papers at coping with new media forms and channels, will probably be among the few leading organs to keep the building space filled with people doing something productive in order to fill the space between the ads.

Perhaps in 10 years' time, the Gray Lady will be aspiring to the crisp brevity of the FT's daily pink-sheets. Alas, you'd have to be English to understand.

Among Renzo Piano's architectural accomplishments are the Pompadou Centre in Paris, New York's Whitney Museum of American Art and Berlin's Potzdamer Platz.